I sent my kids away today. To sleep away camp.  Parental guidance ended when they stepped on the bus that would take them and the children of friends, acquaintances and strangers six hours north.  For a week.  No phones or iPods. No modern instruments of filial security.  Just some chaperones and the grace of God. They are eleven and thirteen.  Together that adds up to 24.  Even if that number could be imputed to their maturity, it would still be dubious.

Don't be afraid.  Welcome the uncertainty. Make friends. Have fun.  All the expected platitudes from a positive parent.  Masking of course the countervailing, long developed wisdom: be wary, limit your risks, avoid strangers, don't do anything dangerous.   Is it any wonder camp is stressful - for parents?

There are no rogues

GANG OF THIEVES

The actions of the US Government against the interests of American citizens are unsupportable, unconstitutional and fly in the face of liberty and self governance.  Sadly, most Americans will not take the necessary action to remove the government by voting out every single representative and every single senator as soon as practicable (Sweep it clean in 2014).  In large part Americans think Congress is a vile snake pit, filled with corrupt thieves and ne'er do wells.  However, those same Americans think THEIR representative is not so tainted.  To the contrary, each congressman is an integral cell in the cancerous mass occupying the Capitol.   Each congressman acts as a part of the collective whole while guarding his self interest in reelection and the accumulation of wealth and power.  Each is part and parcel to taking taxpayer money, borrowing more, and then paying themselves lavishly while redirecting our money to their projects, whether  war, welfare or waste.  Each congressman is both a part, and a reflection, of the whole institution. 

ACTING ALONE?

American citizens, when adopting the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, did not agree to cede to the federal government, or any government, the right to invade their private conversations - digital or otherwise.  The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution put our objection in writing.  They did that because they were sick of the searches by the British government.  They had experience in oppression and wanted no truck with it.

True, citizens can and do provide personal information to corporations and businesses.  They usually do it VOLUNTARILY.   There is a supposed benefit to being known as a customer, or as a friend to an organization.  There is no benefit to being observed by a faceless, all powerful, government.  At any time, your calls, searches, purchases or interests may be subject to review by an entity that may classify you, in secret, and without appeal, as a terrorist or "enemy combatant."  Big Brother rules.

The people who work for federal agencies and for contractors to the federal government are not acting alone or without direction.  When they invade your privacy and track you, they are not being rogues.  They are doing exactly what the organization in its institutional group-think wants its members to do.  To suggest in a press conference that an actual Fourth Amendment violating collection of a free American's correspondence was the action of a "rogue employee" is a farce.  It is akin to calling a finger on one's hand a rogue when the owner of the hand is observed picking his nose with that finger. 

Take the JP Morgan trader who put 4 billion dollars at risk and lost.  The London Whale was called a rogue trader, acting without authorization.  Ridiculous.  He was a manifestation of the organization's highest desires.  He was bred and built by JP Morgan to do what he did.  Had he been successful, he would be hailed by the company for making it money, which is what that company does.  The Whale was harpooned merely because his public display of corporate interests went awry. 

When a TSA agent violates an invalid, a shapely woman, or a child, in the name of "security", that agent is not being a rogue, or a bad apple.  They are manifesting the interests of their overreaching and overzealous agency's interests and philosophy.  Agencies and corporations and governments act through their employees.  Like a person's thoughts are transmitted by their voices or actions, see Republican Rep. King accusing Latino immigrants of hauling drugs so is the government's revolting abuse of power displayed by the actions of government employees.  There are no rogues.

WHAT TO DO

There may be little choice at this time but to revoke the consent of the people to be governed. It is the choice of a free people to accept or reject the actions of an elected government.  We can opt out of the poisonous web of seniority and nepotism and financial cronyism that we have, sadly, allowed.  It is possible with a clear and absolute rejection of the status quo.  How? It will take a concerted display of confident courage at election time.   No incumbent can be allowed to return to office.  Not your representative and not mine.  Every seat must be refreshed with clear thinking and unfettered citizens.  We can not get our country right by returning those who got us so far wrong.  We can not select career politicians to represent us.  They are unable to represent any interests but their own.  A career, by definition, is a selfish pursuit.  We must seek out and elect reluctant servants.  Individuals who have no interest but to return to the vision of a free and prosperous America.  We can not afford to return to office the takers of corporate or private donations, who are clearly bound and beholden like slaves to their deep pocketed patrons.

Plan now for the effort to undo what has been done.  Plan to vote for someone other than who currently occupies a taxpayer funded leather chair in Washington.  Your representative is included.  They must go.  Pursue a leader who does not seek your favor or pander to your self interest.  Find a representative without party support and support them. 

To be free from a foul government is our choice as Americans.  We must turn out the louts and their networks to be free again.   Plan for it and make it so.

Unprepared high school students buried in debt

I read some articles recently in Bloomberg and on AP about the sad inadequacy of American high school students.  They are woefully unprepared for college. 

"A recent study issued by ACT Inc., a testing organization measuring “college readiness,” found that less than one-third of graduating high-school seniors met benchmark standards for science, and a majority failed to meet them for math. Even in English and reading, a large minority of students were below a level that would mostly earn a grade of C or better in college-level work" .Bloomberg.com Sept. 11, 2012.

This lamentable fact, coupled with the crescendo of calls for relief from the towering burden of student loan debt imply some serious problems for American participation in the world economy. 

Kids coming out of college today, buried in 100,000.00 of student loan debt, are unwittingly entering into servitude to student loan servicers.  The debt incurred by students is remarkably non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.  How is it that a company like Lehman Brothers, or Enron, that can financially ruin the lives of millions, can discharge its debt to all of its employees and other debt holders, with its officers walking away Scot free, without obligation to anyone, but a struggling film appreciaton graduate has to pay back their 50k student loan with interest, no matter how long it takes. 

It's true, even borrowers, or their cosigners, (read grandparents) are paying back student loans via forced deductions from social security payments.  Social security!

Hmm.  Let's see.  Schools and lenders urge kids to go to college to get a degree so that they can make more money, or be better workers.  The schools make it easy by putting financial aid sales people on staff.  The lenders get huge amounts of information from parents who want their kids to get the hallowed degree and will do what they have to do to get financing.  Then the kids and the parents fund the overpriced, OVERVALUED, product by borrowing against their hoped for but truly speculative future earnings.  It is an echo of the mortgage debt scam of the early 2000s, but more sinister.  Remember, the incurred debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy except in very rare circumstances. 

We owe our kids better.  We owe ourselves better.  High cost "higher" education for the sake of merely getting a degree is a bad investment.  It is a loser from the first day of class. 

Phones at the gym are stupid

I like my smartphone. It's a Samsung Galaxy S II. It works well, and one of its finer features is that it is not an Iphone. Like most who carry one, it goes with me everywhere. I draw the line at the gym though and scoff at those who don't. There are multiple gym goers at my local weight room who do a set, then sit down on the bench and look at their phones. They end up wasting five minutes they will never get back looking at the phone seated at the bench in the classic stoop with head tilted down, soft glow shining up. Eventually they will get up, and do another set, but this literally takes a five minute cycle, and they will still follow each set with a stop to look at the phone. It is bad enough that the internet converts otherwise valuable, irreplaceable time with hours spent at Break.com or ESPN.com, or anythingbutwork.com. But letting the web's sugar and its insidious and delicious draw pull you from foucssing on your workout is frightfully weak. Leave the phone in the car. Focus on your lifts, your sets and your form. There is nothing in the phone that will help you clean that bar or do that pull up or curl. No, there is not an app for that.

Bain Capital or the Mob?

So an article published today http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/08/investigating-mitt-romney-offshore-accounts,discussed the complicated finances of the Romney family. There was a considerable amount of linguistic dancing about the Bain Capital model of business acquisition. Bain bought companies by teaming with partners like Goldman Sachs to cook the books of companies to be acquired. Bain and its cohorts would use inappropriate assumptions to publish financial documents that would then be used to support borrowing from unsuspecting lenders. Then Bain would pay out the money it had the acquired company's borrow as "dividends" and "fees" and let the company whose assets secured the loan die by bankruptcy. Bain made its money and left lenders with the task of working out the debt clearing process in the courts. This was legal? Technically it was probably couched as "business decisions" and not fraudulent misrepresentation. But fraud is what it was. This is exactly the model used by the mafia when it is owed money. Please see the book "Mob Rules" by Louis Ferrante. If the borrower does not pay, or is otherwise obligated, the mob takes over the borrower's business, borrows all it can to put in its pockets, buys all the sellable merchandise it can on the business's vendor credit lines and then leaves the wrung out husk for the bankruptcy courts to dismantle. This wasn't said in the article but it should be made clear. Bain and Romney bought businesses with other people's money, then made the purchased company borrow more other people's money, then put that money in their pockets as dividends and fees. They knowingly did this. It was fraud and misrepresentation that Wall Street and K Street made sure wasn't characterized that way. Please, someone, tell me how the models are different. I challenge you.

Moving on

Rashinal is too clever for its own good. See you in the next iteration. Adios, bon soir, arrevaderci, yia sas, etc.

BIG OIL OR YOU? WHICH DID CONGRESS CHOOSE?

On June 15, 2010, while millions of gallons of oil were fouling the ocean and beaches in the Gulf of Mexico, sixty one senators voted to continue to provide $37,000,000,000 in tax breaks and credits to oil producers like BP and Exxon. These tax breaks flow directly to big oil companies inflating their profits at the expense of taxpayers and the federal deficit. The obvious oil company shills like Senators Murkowski(AK) and Coburn(OK) voted in favor of coddling the oil companies. But lame duck Senator Voinovich from Ohio, and Senators McConnell and Bunning from Kentucky also planted their kisses on big oil’s ring.

The Kentucky senators are ironic. Mitch I’ve-never-had-a-private-job McConnell is the senate minority leader. He wants to talk about how government spending is out of control while conveniently ignoring how long he’s been in government as a senator. He says he wants to cut taxes and spending. He doesn’t say he wants to make oil companies pay their fair share - neither do his votes.

Don’t get me wrong. I love profit, business and entrepreneurship. I love a juicy return on my investments too. But come on. Oil companies do not need help from taxpayers to make big profits.

Next consider Senator Bunning. He’s a charmer. This is the guy that single handedly held up the extension of desperately needed unemployment compensation benefits to the tune of thirty six billion dollars. Those benefits were to help employees who cannot find work for more than a year after they lost their jobs. His position was that “there are jobs, it’s just that all these unemployed slackers don’t want to work”. He would rather see Americans in his state and around the country go hungry or lose their homes, than make oil companies pay taxes on their profits.

Now some will say that extending benefits to unemployed people causes them to get lazy and complacent. I can see the logic in that argument. After all, congressmen get paid to do nothing too and they keep coming back for more. And don’t forget Citibank and GM. They were burning through taxpayer dollars, their management enjoying multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses while their companies floundered, all the while saying “we need to keep our talent and honor these contracts to pay bonuses.” All this while they terminated pension and union contracts that were in favor of working people, guaranteeing fair work rules, health coverage and hourly pay. But those thousands of workers don’t contribute millions of dollars to Republican causes, so contracts be damned. Take your lumps workers.

Of course there were 21 Democrats who wanted to protect the oil company profits by voting to kill the loophole closing amendment. Short of a revolution it appears that the only way to effect a real change in D.C. is to vote with a purpose. The purpose would be to replace every one of the senators and congressmen up for election in November. Almost any change would be better than allowing the fleecers in office to continue what they've begun. The purge would need to continue in 2012 with that group of Senate incumbents (1/3 of the Senate) removed too, and any of the new reps from 2010 that had consumed the rotten Kool Aid in their first terms.

The process needs to be repeated in 2014 with the last group of senators elected in 2008 removed. This complete reorganization is necessary in order to confirm to Congress that Americans have had enough. Doing any less of a thorough house (and senate) cleaning would allow the incumbents to indoctrinate the newcomers in the ways of narcissism and corruption. Even if we lost a couple of dedicated, thoughtful senators or representatives in the process, the removal of the greater group of sniping, squandering rabble would be worth it. It would shake national politics to its core too. Party lines would crumble and it would allow candidates who did not toe the party lines to rise up and make a difference. A complete renovation of congressional faces would make it clear to the political financiers and advisers that the two party jig was up.

As it stands, sound bites and “positions” have become interchangeably identified with either the majority or the minority. Each says the same about the other depending on who is in power. This makes the distinction between the two parties meaningless. How is it possible in a country as diverse as the United States that we are left with only two ostensibly competing view points? There are tens of brands of automobiles, more than fifty different kinds of breakfast cereal, ten brands of peanut butter, innumerable brands of hot sauces, but only two political viewpoints?

Remember in November that Congress is now filled with self interested career politicians who will make more in annual pension benefits, after retiring from even one financially rapacious term, than most of us will ever make in a year while working -- even if they are worthless while they are in office. Remember that fact too when you pay your quarterly estimated taxes, and your annual income taxes and every other tax dollar paid to the treasury for congressional miscreants to squander without any noticeable regard to the country’s debt or currency.

If the past and current conduct by this Congress does not motivate people to make big changes, and I don't mean just switching parties at election time, then the population will get the government it deserves, and will get it good and hard.